a brocade of tales and short stories

Category Archives: April AtoZ

I’m back from my self-imposed break. At the end of April I was pretty sick, but I pushed through the A-Z challenge. I was going to do the Story a Day challenge again, but I just needed to take some time and recuperate and finally get over this cold. Well, I’m feeling better so I’m back to the stories again, but they probably aren’t going to be everyday as that may have been too much to take on with all the other stuff I have going on. 🙂

Like this:

His first night he lost his arm, but was able to pick up a replacement when attacked some girl for her brain. Yum! Now he was after hers. A month ago, Leona had been dreaming of saying “I do” with her boyfriend Kenny, now she just looked forward to sending him back to the grave.

They were going to have the perfect life, so she thought. Kenny had just landed a job, at the chemical plant after graduation and then proposed. They were going to save up and get married next summer. That was before the accident. Leona didn’t know what happened. She had an ‘episode’ and blacked out. Next thing she remembered was waking up to the car wrapped around a tree and the two of them lying in a ditch.

The friction of shuffling feet approaching could be heard from a mile away, time to get out of town or become lunch. On her way out-of-town, Leona heard an explosion.

“The zombie mob charged into chemical plant!” a weary nurse shouted over the continuing explosions when she met up with Leona at the edge of town. “They must have wiped out that whole side of town.”

“What were they doing at the chemical plant?” Leona asked.

“Looking for brains to eat! They had some young-looking guy leading them.”

“Come on this way!” Leona encouraged the nurse to join her, wonder if it was Kenny leading the attack on the chemical plant.

“I’m Nell. I’m your nurse.”

That was not the way to go. Nell and Leona ran straight into a handful of hungry zombies. Nell was fantastic at zombie combat, she must have taken Krav Maga on her days off. Leona was still struggling with her first zombie as Nell was finishing off her fourth. At the last-minute Leona took off the zombie‘s head narrowly avoiding becoming his dinner. She made a break for it, landing in his arms.

“It’s time we real about this, Kenny. You can’t keep telling me you love me and then try to eat my brain.”

“You have no idea what you did to me.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You did this to me, Leona.”

“No…I…” she started, as Nell finished with a well placed kick.

“Run!” Nell urged her. They ran for what seemed like forever. “It is possible some other survivors are hiding out at the old army fort. We should head there, Leona.” Nell urged her on. “Here, take your pill.”

Leona came to in a cabin surrounded by trees, they had never made it to the fort, but she could hear Nell’s humming outside the cabin door as she chopped firewood. Leona’s head was fuzzy, she felt like puking as she wandered outside to find Nell. What was going on?! The last time she saw her boyfriend he was leading a zombie mob, “Where was Nell!? What happened to the zombies?” Leona mused in the eerie silence of the woods. “What happened to her boyfriend?”

“We must be close to Berryhill. I’ve been camping around here on vacation before.” Nell said interrupting Leona’s thoughts and startling the already fragile girl.

“I’ll go out looking for some food tomorrow morning.” said as she stroke Leona’s arm trying to comfort Leona. Nell led Leona back to the bed in the cabin. “Here, take your pill.” Leona was quick to succumb to Nell’s medicine.

Nell went out searching for food the next morning, but didn’t return that night, nor the next morning, or the morning after that. On the third day, Leona, still fuzzy, but fearing the worse set out on her own to find Nell.

She made her way into Berryhill. It was deserted. The zombies must have been here. She prayed they had moved on to the next town. No such luck. Murmuring and shuffling feet startled Leona into action. Unfamiliar with the town, she just ran and ran, left , left, right , left again. Leona was totally lost now. A silent, sterile building stood before her with a sign reading ‘Berryhill Mental Hospital.’ She entered hoping to find a place to hide once more. The zombies followed silently. Leona had successfully hid from the zombie mob led by her boyfriend for nearly a week now, only to now find herself surrounded and trapped.

“I’ll have your brain for what you did to me, Leona!” the long hallway echoed.

She tried to open the doors as she ran looking for a place to hide, but they were all locked. Exhausted and out of breath, she reached the end of the hall. Only one more door to try as the zombies closed in.

It opened.

–

“The patient is awake, doctor.”

“Good, let’s see if she’ll cooperate.”

—–788 words—–

And our final haunting is inspired by the tried and true zombies. This is a longer piece for you today, something that I’ve been working on and editing for awhile-a work in progress. I hope you’ve enjoyed these A to Z haunting as much as I have.

May brought the cherry blossoms in the mile high city to bloom after the long and frigid winter. Kazou was enjoying a stroll along the artisan shops when he saw a beautiful, thin, pale woman looking at the paintings through t window of the local art gallery.

“Beautiful aren’t they?” he asked. She only nodded in response.

“Do you live around here? I’m a student-art history,” Kazou continued nervously. The pale well-dressed woman only nodded in response again.

“We could go back to my place if you’d like?”Kazou suggested, expecting to be shot down, but the woman nodded in agreement.

—–100 words—–

Today’s haunting beginning is inspired by the Yūrei, in particular the Seductress Ghosts, a ghost of a woman or man who initiates a post-death love affair with a living human, as seen in Botan Dōrō. So in case you couldn’t tell the beautiful woman was a ghost and the story won’t end well for Kazou. For an idea on his fate check out the details of the Botan story.

“Come Otto, let’s check on the creature. This will determine if our experiment is a success.” Dr Lantha prodded.

Otto rolled his eyes. When did it become our experiment? When the creature was found to be uncontrollable? Or when it was born to begin with? Otto opened the door the laboratory to find it in shambles yet again. The door to the cage the creature had been kept in was open wide with the creature nowhere to be seen.

Your challenge this weekend is to give us 33 words about anything you want. Your piece must include at least one hyphenated compound modifier. Remember that the hyphen will join your two words together to create one, so you will have a bit more wiggle room with your word count and language. You are free to use more than one hyphenated modifier in your post, but we ask that you be careful not to sacrifice readability in the process.

“What are you doing on that ladder? You’re going to fall and break your neck!”

“I’m trying to let some sunlight in,” Luminita replied as she climbed down.

“Oh, those vampire romances got you spooked?” Cosmin teased.

“Yeah…” she admitted from the last rung.

“Well, come here,” Cosmin invited with outstretched arms, “I have a real world cure for that.”

Luninita ran to the safety of Cosmin’s arms, and breathed a sigh of relief. That last novella wast too real, too plausible. Luminita relaxed in Cosmin strong embrace, listening for his heart, perplexed by the faint beat she couldn’t hear.

—–100 words—–

Today’s haunting is inspired by the many tales world-wide of vampires or blood suckers, particularly the RomanianVârcolac a vampire/werewolf. Though I went with the more pop culture version that the dual vampire werewolf here today, it’s because we’ll visit that other iconic ghoul of pop culture tomorrow-the werewolf.

It’s also time for Friday Fictioneers. Where every friday bloggers from around the world gather to share their 100-word stories based on the photo prompt hosted by Rochelle Wisoff. For more Friday Fictioneer Stories…

It seemed like every year my allergies kept getting worse. My annual Spring sinus infection became two. None of the over the counter stuff worked, but then the prescription stuff stopped working too. I was on so many pills; I was like a walking zombie. I wasn’t the only thing. Some blamed it on global warming, some on pollution. They were headed in the right direction, sort of. We just didn’t realize the culprit until it was too late.

Mother Nature every year was trying a new experiment, a new slow poison concoction on us, before we got her we our pollution, chemicals, weapons, etc. It was a slow suffering death, just like we were giving it to her. She just didn’t realize she couldn’t get rid of us that easy. As she started administering the lethal dosage of her poison, we humans evolved, sort of.

We became the undead.

Mawdryn Undead (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

—–150 words—–

Today’s haunting beginning is inspired by the recent Earth Day and the undead, a popular motif among many cultures including today’s pop culture. Having been used to tell of romance, danger, heroism, horror, comedy, tragedy, and satire, the undead are versatile characters for any story horror or not that will transcend political, cultural, and religious boundaries.